The Geography of Black Swans

I deserve a Gold Star for Effectiveness:
I set up a Football display at work.

Do I care about football? I do not. 
I even had to ask if it is football season. 
"Week two," Big Boss said.

My favorite touch is the casserole dish (top, right) in a raffia-fruit basket. Hot dish—sometime with green beans and tater tots?—should be served during the games.

     (Maroon and gold are local college football colors.)

I've been reading small doses of Peter Drucker on management. 
He says lots of people are intelligent, knowledgeable, and creative. (He's talking about "knowledge workers".)
But NOT many people are effective.

I am nowhere near as effective as I could be. 
When I look through photos of my end-cap displays, however, I see that I am effective there (working within the limits imposed).

I'm especially pleased with the football one because I transcended my own interests. I did it for the sake of the store, and in service to people who like something I don't like. (Except the casserole.)
I also had fun, because I like arranging stuff, and I like being of service. Win/win.

I'm reading Drucker partly for work, but more for myself. (Because management at work is so unstable, I've learned to focus only on what I can do on my own there.) But also, for my life outside work.

A lot of what Drucker says applies to the individual as well as organizations, to life as well as the workplace, and turbulence is one of his topics. That's us, now!

“In turbulent times, you cannot assume that tomorrow will be an extension of today.” 

– Peter Drucker, Managing in Turbulent Times, 1980
[originally ^ read "managers cannot"]

“To survive and succeed, every individual will have to turn herself into a change agent.”

– A Functioning Society, 2003
 ^ originally read "every organization... itself"

It's a cognitive bias to assume that things--that we ourselves--will stay the same. 
They will not. 

Black swans are improbable, unpredictable events with huge impact. [Wikipedia entry]
Each one is rare in itself, but one always comes along... eventually.
The black swan is always a surprise (by definition), 
but that such an event happens should not be.

The event may be good or bad––a shooting, a stranger handing you a flower––or, like the Zen story about the farmer, his son, and a horse points out, their effects are far reaching and ongoing and can't be judged.

For instance, my knee injury seems self-evidently "bad",
but the other day on the bus, I ran into a friend I hadn't seen in twenty years. We'd studied Classics together. 
If my knee had been well, I'd have been biking and wouldn't have been on that bus.
So, . . who knows?

On the other hand, that friendship hadn't lasted because I'd liked but hadn't loved the guy. 
We're going to get together soon and catch up. Maybe he's gotten worse. Maybe I'll wish I'd never seen him on the bus.
Who knows?

Best not to make a firm judgment before it's over. 
And is it ever over?
But we can say, I'm not liking this.
Or, I am. 
I like my football display!

What stops me from being effective?
A big one is my reactions to other people.
Being sensitive to other people makes me a good "servant leader".
Being too sensitive hampers me from taking action.

I would like to surf more gracefully on the waves of other people's reactions to/opinions of me, to discern more clearly when those waves merit consideration, and when I'm unreasonably afraid of them. Not to force myself to act when I'm afraid, but to let go of some of the unwarranted fear. 

Can't surf the ocean if you're too afraid. 
Also, don't go out during a hurricane.
_____________
What helps?

Stories help.

I was cheered that Alexei Navalny was sustained by "good old Jesus and his family", as he said, as he faced torture and death in a Russian Arctic prison.

Jesus says to Peter, "What's it to you, what other people are doing?"

A friend told me this, and I thought, surely Jesus didn't say the words What's it to you, did he? 
That sounds so modern, so slangy.

So I looked up the Greek, and in John 21:22 that's what it literally says:

"You follow me" = keep your eye on the prize.
Follow what you know is right and true. 
(KEY: Learn how to discern that.)

Anyway, I take heart that some amazing people managed to do this--to do what they knew was right in the face of some pretty severe reactions, like being imprisoned, tortured, and murdered--and that the story of Jesus helped them.

It helps me too. For instance, and I'm always saying this, I'm thrilled by the reminder that I AM NOT THE SAVIOR. And also the reminder that I could try harder. (I am also always saying, I hate the phrase "everyone is doing their best". I'm not!)

Another story I'm finding helpful is the rather preposterous story that our souls on the astral plane chose to come to Earth, here and now--and to meet up with the people we meet. (A Hindu-inflected Theosophy/New Age belief.)

(Jesus isn't preposterous, though some elements of his story may be. 
People like him are Black Swans--each one different, but they come around every so often and surprise us. Stories about them mingle fact, truth, and [sometimes preposterous] fan-fiction.)

Anyway--it makes me smile in a staff meeting to think,
"All the people at this table--our souls chose to be here with one another".
It's so funny! The humor brings oxygen into an airless room.
And it can be genuinely helpful to think of someone I find difficult: 
Is there something I have to learn from this person? This encounter?

Sometimes the lesson is, learn to . . . 
Say no.
Or, Leave.

Sometimes the best, most brilliant answer to "What's it to you?" is, 
"It is too much for me, and I'm stepping away."

Though I am not an admirer of abandoning ship when the seas gets rough, I do believe it’s our work to discern what’s right for us.

 It can be a hard call.

I feel bad that I left the autistic students in high school – – not that I could’ve changed the system, but I was a bit of a firewall for some of them, and then I left.

Sometimes we fail. Often, in fact.

For now, I'm noodling along at work, looking for ways I can be effective at the store without engaging too much with management.
That can be like the scene in Casablanca when Ilsa and Laszlo come into Rick's, and Ilsa asks to be seated close to Sam at the piano.
Lazslo adds, "And as far from Major Strasser as possible."

Rick replies, "The geography may be a little difficult to arrange." 
Of course he manages it. He's an effective manager.

Ha, Difficult geography.
I just realized, that's pretty much the theme of the movie.

We're in a spot of tricky geography ourselves. 
It'll be interesting to see how we manage it.